July Thunder. Rachel Lee

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      “Bad.” She tried to smile. “Jim can only pay for half of it right now, so I’m anteing up the rest until he can pay me back.”

      “You should have made him take responsibility for it, Mary.”

      “He is taking responsibility. And I don’t want to be responsible for making him lose his insurance, because if he can’t drive, he can’t get to work.”

      “That’s true. But that kid seems to need a lesson.”

      “He’s eighteen. He’s getting his lessons. But sometimes it’s necessary for adults to provide a bit of a safety net so these kids don’t crash and burn while they learn.”

      He nodded slowly. “You’re a kind woman, Mary.”

      She shook her head. “I’m a teacher. I haven’t had a chance to forget all the stupid things I did at that age.”

      Sam nodded, admitting to himself he was coming down harshly on Jim, more harshly than was his wont. Maybe he was just getting sick of human stupidity. He sure saw enough of it.

      “You know,” Mary said, “I’ve never known a preacher’s kid before. Well, other than one I taught. Is it true that you guys cut up more than usual as kids?”

      “I don’t know about anybody else. I think I was just average.” Actually less than average, because his father would have put him through hell for even minor misbehavior, but he didn’t want to get into that.

      “That seemed to be true of my student, too. Just the average sort of stuff. He seemed like a normal kid to me.”

      “An interesting concept, normal.”

      She smiled. “Isn’t it?”

      Her smile, he realized, was warm enough to make his toes tingle. Why had he never before noticed her? And why was he noticing her now? Both questions left him feeling uncomfortable, and he began to develop an urgent desire to get away from her. She was disturbing him, and he didn’t like that.

      But she was a beautiful woman, and he had plenty of opportunity to notice that while they did the dishes. Her movements were inherently graceful, as if she were comfortable inside her own body. What was more, she didn’t have that boyish look that seemed to be so popular in women these days. Her hips were well rounded, looking as if they could cradle a man in perfect comfort. And her breasts, while not overly large, were full and inviting. He couldn’t understand why some man hadn’t snatched her up long since.

      Which was, surely, a damn good reason to get the hell out of there.

      “Do you have any other family?” she asked as he washed and she dried.

      “Not a soul.”

      “I’m not blessed that way, either,” she admitted. “My aunt is still alive, but right now she’s getting chemotherapy.”

      “I’m sorry. How bad is it?”

      “I don’t know. The doctors seem hopeful, but…I’m not sure they’re not lying to us.”

      “Where does she live?”

      “In Denver.”

      He reached for another towel and dried his hands. “If you want to go down and visit her before your car gets fixed, let me know. I’ll be glad to take you. In fact, if you need to get anywhere between now and then, just let me know.”

      “Thanks, Sam.” She smiled. “You’re a kind man.”

      Hah, he thought as he stepped out into the night. Kind? Not hardly.

      He paused in the driveway beside his patrol car and stared at his father’s house across the street. The long mountain twilight had erased the shadows, making the evening strangely flat. A light had come on over there. The old man was home.

      Sam stood for a few minutes, trying to deal with the reality of his father moving to town. All day long he’d stewed in discomfort, but he hadn’t allowed himself to really think about it. He supposed it was something he needed to do, and the sooner the better.

      It kind of surprised him, though, that fifteen years of separation didn’t seem to have given him any real emotional distance. The instant he’d laid eyes on his father this morning, all those old feelings had been there, as fresh as they’d ever been. That wasn’t going to make the situation easy.

      Just then he thought he smelled a whiff of smoke. Instinctively he scanned the area, looking for signs of a fire. Nothing. He supposed that someone must be burning a log in their woodstove to take off the chill of the evening, even if it did seem warm enough to him.

      Another whiff and then it was gone. Nothing.

      Sighing, he climbed into his patrol car and headed home.

      Elijah Canfield had seen Sam help Mary in with her groceries, but he hadn’t seen him leave. He hadn’t intended to watch, but he was getting older and had collapsed into his easy chair, surrounded by the boxes that held the residue of his life, too tired to do any more today. It just happened that his chair had been put in position to see out the front window.

      He wandered briefly into the kitchen, where everything was still in boxes, and helped himself to the dinner his new congregation had brought him: cold sliced turkey, salad and slabs of homemade bread. For dessert there was a generous square of crumb cake.

      When he returned to his easy chair and settled in the only position that would ease his stiff back, he resumed his absent contemplation. That was when he saw Sam come out of the McKinney woman’s house.

      So they were dating.

      That was inconvenient, he thought. When he’d accepted the pastorship here, it had never occurred to him that Sam would still be living in this town. Sam was a runner. He’d run away from Elijah more than once in his younger days, and Elijah had just somehow figured that Sam would have moved on when his wife had died.

      Regardless, it hadn’t been a possibility that had entered into his decision one way or the other. He’d long since buried his son, emotionally speaking.

      Or he thought he had. Judging by the way he was reacting, things weren’t quite as dead as he’d believed.

      He felt angry. Of course, anger wasn’t unfamiliar to Elijah Canfield. He routinely got angry at sin. Anger was, in fact, his stock-in-trade. Sometimes he even let his anger spill over from the sin to the sinner, if he thought it might do any good.

      But when he thought of his son, he wasn’t angry at sin. He was angry at waste. Sam had wasted himself and his God-given talents. The Spirit had been upon him, but Sam had refused the call.

      Belle, his late wife, hadn’t seen it that way. They’d fought bitterly over their son on many occasions, especially after Elijah had disowned the boy. Belle had thought it wasn’t Elijah’s place to determine their son’s calling. Elijah felt that, as a preacher, he was better able to judge that matter than anyone else.

      But whatever the arguments had been, it remained that Elijah was still angry. Searingly angry.

      And hurt.

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